Early voting begins in New Jersey

Voters can cast in-person machine ballots at any early polling center in their county of residence between the hours of 10 a.m. and 8 p.m., or 6 p.m. on Sundays. Early voting closes on Nov. 1.

All 12 of the state’s seats in the House of Representatives are up for a vote this year, as is the U.S. Senate seat held by Sen. Cory Booker (D), who is seeking a third full term in the chamber and faces a challenge from Republican Justin Murphy.

Eyes are on New Jersey’s House Republicans this year as the party attempts to defend the state’s three GOP-held seats amid a cost-of-living crisis spurred by tariffs and President Donald Trump’s invasion of Iran.

The 7th Congressional District is again expected to host the state’s marquee House race.

Two-term Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R) faces a challenge in the 7th District from former U.S. Navy helicopter pilot Rebecca Bennett in a reelection bid complicated by a monthslong absence from Congress that Kean said was due to depression.

Bennett spent Saturday crisscrossing the district. In the morning, she attended a union rally outside Rahway City Hall where she urged workers to “fire” Kean.

“There is no other alternative than flipping this seat and taking back the House,” she said. “We have to do it. And just like in the military, we are on a no-fail mission and we’ve got to get this done.”

Kean’s campaign declined to make his schedule available.

The state changed the law to allow early in-person voting in 2021, and its popularity with voters has risen since then.

In 2023, only about 214,000 residents cast early in-person votes. In the following year’s presidential race, nearly 1.2 million New Jerseyans used early voting, and during last year’s election, when voters picked a governor and 80 legislators in the state Assembly, the figure was 741,924.

“Early voting has really become a popular way to vote because it’s easy, it’s accessible,” said Nuzhat Chowdhury, director of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice’s democracy and justice program. “You can go anytime within that early voting window as long as the polls are open, and it really helps alleviate congestion during Election Day.”

Counties are required by law to host between three and seven early polling places, based on their population, and the state will reimburse them for up to five, seven, or 10 polling sites, again based on a county’s population.

This year, two counties, Essex and Hudson, will stand up polling sites at their own expense. Essex will host a total of 11 sites, while Hudson will host 31. Overall, the 171 early polling centers that opened Saturday mark a small decline from the prior year, which had 173.

See a list of early voting centers

Voters can also cast mail-in ballots ahead of Election Day by mailing them, depositing them in a secure ballot drop box, or hand-delivering the ballot to their county’s Board of Elections.

Some county clerks have nudged mail voters away from the U.S. Postal Service and toward drop boxes after the Postal Service adopted a rule saying it would not deliver ballots in states that refused to upload protected voter data to federal systems. The U.S. Supreme Court blocked that rule last month, but voting rights groups are still advising voters who wish to cast their ballots through the post to do so sooner rather than later.

“You can mail your ballot up to Election Day, but just to be safe and to leave plenty of time for the postal service to do what they need to do, we’re recommending doing so a week in advance,” Chowdhury said. “Mail-in-ballot voters can also drop their ballot off at any authorized drop box.”

See a list of secure ballot drop boxes

Under state law, valid mail votes must be accepted so long as they are postmarked by Election Day and reach election officials no more than six days after polls close.

The Postal Service made changes to how it applies postmarks this year. Instead of applying them at post offices, the agency now applies them at regional distribution centers.

It could take days for election mail to reach those distribution centers, and election officials have advised voters returning ballots close to Election Day that they can request post office staff apply a postmark to their mail directly instead of waiting for it to reach a distribution center.

Last year, 20,749 mail ballots cast in the general election reached officials after Election Day, out of the 671,763 tallied in those races.